


The Space You Take Up (One-Shot)

by ThatOneAwkwardFangirl_Liz_Cecil



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Body Image, Body Positivity, F/F, Female Hazuki Nagisa, Female Hazuki Nagisa/Female Ryuugazaki Rei, Female Nanase Haruka, Female Nanase Haruka/Female Tachibana Makoto, Female Ryuugazaki Rei, Female Tachibana Makoto, Fluff, Genderswap, Minor Hazuki Nagisa/Ryuugazaki Rei, Self-Esteem Issues, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 07:46:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16782700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatOneAwkwardFangirl_Liz_Cecil/pseuds/ThatOneAwkwardFangirl_Liz_Cecil
Summary: Tachibana Makoto has been taller and more muscular than the other girls her age since junior high - height, thanks to genetics, and muscles, thanks to being athletic. She's self-conscious enough as it is, but constantly being told that she's too much - too tall, too big, too muscular - makes it difficult to work through it.Her best friend and teammate Nanase Haruka has some gentle words to help, though.





	The Space You Take Up (One-Shot)

**Author's Note:**

> The idea came to me, because 1) if you've read my other fic, you know I like making sports animes fem, because, lesbians, and female friendships, and 2) I usually keep heights and body types the same when I do any AU gender changing, just because I feel like it's less things to keep track of (meaning, I can google "how tall is Tachibana Makoto" and "how tall is Nanase Haruka" instead of being like, "if they were girls, they would probably be x c.m. instead").
> 
> I'm always really excited about fics of any length where I get to show characters in situations of feminine friendships. Girls supporting girls? Man nothing is better than when a girl tells you nice things. Having girl friends is like, a support squad around you constantly. Since these boys already love and support each other like it's their job, this was not hard to write.
> 
> Content warning that it's focusing on fem!Makoto struggling with body image and self-esteem, but also, there's a really good message at the end (inspired by a few things I read on Tumblr).

I was always one of the tiny girls in grade school.

It made it easy to hide behind my friends when I was scared. I didn’t really mind being shorter than everyone else, even if I did get teased now and then. Like most people, of course I figured I would keep growing until eventually I was taller (my short friends tell me that they’re still waiting for that to happen to them – um, sorry, Nagisa-chan).

But in my third year of junior high, I just hit a major growth spurt that felt like it would never end. That, combined with being an athlete, and suddenly I wasn’t a tiny girl. I was tall, and I had bulky muscles, and instead of commenting on how small I was, it was about how much space I took up.

Too tall for dresses. Too muscular to be attractive. Don’t wear heels.

Why is it that the world really wants to tell women how they are and aren’t allowed to look? Even the parts they have no control over?

By third year of high school, I hardly heard them. I mean, what did I care if they thought girls shouldn’t be over 180 cm, or that girls shouldn’t have muscles? I was surrounded by my best friends on the swim team. I didn’t need to care.

But there’s just a special kind of sting that comes along with hearing someone voice a thought you already have in your head.

My inner thoughts always were telling me I was too much.

-

“The back is cut low, so that you can show off all your gorgeous, _gorgeous_ muscles!” Gou-chan said cheerily, holding up a swimsuit for me. The club had gone shopping again, because Haru swore she needed another swimsuit.

“Thanks, G- er, Kou.” I took it from her, a little concerned. “You really think I need to show off the muscles?”

She nodded so vigorously it probably hurt her neck. “Oh yes! Definitely!”

That was the nice thing about Kou. She thought girls with muscles were the best thing that god had ever put on the earth – frankly, I had to agree. For example…

“Oh, Haruka, that really shows off your triceps!” she said as Haru stepped out of the dressing room. “Your arms look so nice in the outfits you choose!”

“It looks exactly like the last one you bought,” Nagisa said, momentarily pausing from chasing Rei around with a bikini.

“It’s different,” Haru argued. Well, maybe argued is the wrong word to use. She never said anything with very much inflection in her tone. It was just a contradictory statement. But Nagisa wasn’t wrong. It was basically identical to every other swimming costume that Haru had.

“Go try yours on!” Gou insisted.

I walked into the dressing room to pull it on, and Gou wasn’t wrong about how it would look. Part of me felt really good about that. You could see how much work I’d done in the last year to be ready for my last swims of high school.

Part of me felt less good.

_I’ll probably be taller than even some of the guys there. My muscles are far too big to let them all be shown like this. Ugh, every time my skin is revealed, I look way too manly. I just tower over my friends and something like this would make it more obvious._

“Mako-chan!” Nagisa called. “Can we see?!”

I came out, half-confident, half-embarrassed. It turned to full embarrassment when Gou and Nagisa cheered.

“Give us a spin!” Gou requested before squealing.

“You look hot!” Nagisa complimented, beaming up at me.

“Haru, what do you think?” I asked.

She looked over at me and gave a tiny nod. “It’s good.”

“Rei-chan!” Nagisa called. “Please show everyone the one I picked out for you!”

Looking even more nervous than me, she came out of the dressing room, wearing the bikini that Nagisa had shoved at her.

“This isn’t flattering,” she insisted, adjusting the straps uncomfortably.

“I think you look cool!” Nagisa insisted. “Doesn’t she look good?”

“I’m going to stick to the one I usually wear, Nagisa-chan,” she said, backing up into the dressing room once more.

“I want to look at dresses after this!” Nagisa declared.

“Are you going to get it?” Gou asked when I turned back to the dressing room.

I smiled. “I – yeah. Sure, Kou-chan. I will get it.”

“Yay!”

-

In the dress section, Nagisa grabbed anything flowery and bright for herself, and anything tight fitting or short for Rei.

“You’d look so pretty in this one! And this one!”

“Nagisa-chan.” Rei was progressively getting more and more red, but she would try on just about anything her girlfriend suggested. “Oh, fine.”

“Yay!” She continued going through the racks, looking for something else. “Oh! Mako-chan!! This one! Try on this one!”

“I don’t really wear dresses,” I told her. “They don’t suit me.”

“Why would you think that?” she asked, looking at me in confusion.

“Because I’m so tall, and my muscles are so… I look like a Roman soldier or something, it’s not pretty.”

Rei poked her head out of the dressing room, trying to pull up the dress without pulling the hem all the way up. “I find that difficult to believe, Makoto-senpai. Your height and muscles make you, objectively speaking, much more beautiful, therefore even more suited to beautiful clothing.”

“Do I still look good, even though I’m short and not as muscle-y?” Nagisa asked her.

“Of course you do. You’re confident and petite, which adds to your personal beauty,” Rei replied. “I didn’t say only one body was beautiful. Beauty is in many forms.”

“Remember when she didn’t think swimming was beautiful?” Gou laughed.

“It isn’t if you’re drowning,” Rei pointed out.

“Try on the dress!” Nagisa cried, handing it to me.

I took it from her and headed back into the dressing room. It was a nice, green dress – knee length, flowy, strapless. If I was going to pick something for myself, it would have been like that. I would wear white wedges with it, because it would look cute.

_But you’re already so tall, and you kind of have manly calves. I don’t think I’d suit heels like that. I don’t even know if I suit-_

_Stop._

I put it on and looked in the mirror. The mirror didn’t break. When I stepped out of the dressing room, no one fainted. It was almost as if I could wear whatever I wanted, whether or not the voice in my head thought so.

Nagisa went starry-eyed as she ran to me, spinning me and smiling. “You’re so pretty!”

“You truly are beautiful, Makoto-senpai,” Rei agreed.

“You know, if you braided your hair to the side while wearing this, you could still see your back muscles-”

“Gou-chan!” Nagisa interrupted. “It’s not about the muscles. It’s about how pretty Mako-chan is!”

“It’s always about the muscles!”

“Haru-chan, what do you think?!” Nagisa asked.

She looked at me and her expression just barely shifted. “It’s nice.” It was hard to read her, but I could tell that this was excitement for her.

“Thank you, Haru.”

“Are you buying it?” she asked, looking at a dress herself. She liked sundresses, as long as she could conceal a swimsuit underneath it.

“Yes,” I decided. “I think I will.”

“We should all wear new dresses to dinner tonight! How fun would that be?” Nagisa said, practically vibrating with excited energy.

-

“Hey, Mom?” I called as I got ready to leave the house again.

“Yes, Makoto?”

“Can I borrow your white wedges? I think that they would look nice with this dress.”

Her eyes got wide when I walked into the kitchen. “You’re wearing a dress!?”

“Nagisa-chan picked it out for me, does it look okay-?”

“You look beautiful,” she assured me. “Let’s go find those shoes!”

Once I was ready, I headed outside to meet Haru and walk together. She was wearing a white sundress with flowers on it (how did she find these things), but nothing else was different. I could see her swimsuit peaking out from the bottom (she always went with things that covered her thighs, but then we could always _see them_ ), and her hair was no different from earlier. She was always beautiful, no matter how little effort she put in.

“You don’t think we’re going to swim after this, do you?” I teased. As we started to walk, a couple kittens rubbed up against my legs.

“What if there’s a pool.” It wasn’t even a question, just that I should know by now: Nanase Haruka was always prepared for a swim.

“Okay.” We took a few more steps before I said, “You look nice.”

She shrugged. “You too.”

“Mom almost fainted when she saw I was actually wearing a dress, haha.”

“That’s because you never do anymore.”

I looked over at her. “Well, it’s hard to find-”

“Nagisa can always find one in your size,” she interrupted softly.

“Okay. I don’t like them very much.”

“Okay.”

-

I had hoped the evening with friends would help, especially since my friends never held back on gushing. But everything I’d ever told myself, along with everything anyone had ever said to me, was still in my head.

Walking home, Haru took me on the ocean detour. Instead of going to our houses, she started towards the water.

“Haru!”

She started to take off her dress as she walked.

“Oh my god, Haru!”

“It isn’t cold,” she said, stepping into the water.

I laughed. “I’m not going in with you. These are my mom’s shoes.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” she pointed out before stepping out further.

That may have been true, but also true was that I would follow her anywhere. I took off the shoes and set them by her dress before following her into the water.

She was just floating on her back, staring up at the night sky. Even though most would say she looked the same as normal, I could see in her eyes that she was at peace in the water.

“You’re going to ruin your new dress,” she said. It was already soaked to the waist.

“It’s not like I’ll wear it again.”

“Why not?”

“You know,” I said, floating on my back beside her.

“I really don’t.”

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “Everyone says I’m too tall and muscular to wear dresses.”

“Everyone?”

“Okay, so not the people on the team,” I corrected, “but other people.”

“They’ve never seen you in a dress, then.”

“You don’t think they’re right?”

“No.”

Haru had been swimming even longer than me, but she never got as tall (though she certainly wasn’t short) and didn’t put on muscle as easily. Her arms were toned, but she never looked bulky. I was probably twice her width-

“Stop thinking about that.” I didn’t know how she knew, but she always did.

“Sorry.”

“People telling you not to wear dresses is like when people tell me not to order mackerel at a restaurant. They can say it, but they’re wrong, and you don’t have to listen to them.”

“Yeah, but eating mackerel doesn’t make you feel like a Titan next to your friends.”

She stood up and leaned over me. “You’re not a Titan. More like a god.” Then, she started to walk back to shore.

“W-what? Haru!” I stood and followed her, trying to run against the water’s resistance.

The slight change in facial expression was from “calm and in the water” to “annoyed that you’re not getting it” this time.

“What?” I repeated. “I mean, it’s not like I’m you. I don’t just do what I want, when I want, because I want to. I know it’s not true, but sometimes it’s like you’re not self-conscious about anything.”

She sighed and shook her head, sending water droplets everywhere. “But you don’t have to be self-conscious, Makoto. You’re beautiful, and you never need to apologize for the space you take up in the world.”

“H-Haru-chan!” I gasped.

She turned and started towards her clothes, so I ran after her. Before she reached them, I hugged her tightly from behind, burying my face in her shoulder. She just stood there for a moment, then reached up and pat my arm. I let go of her so that she could gather her things.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

I turned red. “I- I don’t know what you mean.”

She narrowed her eyes ever so slightly. “Really.”

I felt frozen for some reason. “Y-yes.” Trying to snap myself out of it, I grabbed my shoes and found a not-sandy place to sit and put them on.

When I looked up, Haru had her hand extended to me. I took it.

Before I was fully standing, she kissed me. It was quick and soft, but it happened. If she hadn’t been holding onto me, I might’ve fallen back down.

“You used to be shorter than me.”

“I know.”

“It’s okay that you aren’t anymore.”

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of this comes from girls who I've heard talk about what they're told for being tall, muscular, loud, quiet, big, small, etc., so to every girl out there (yes you, even the trans sister to the left), you're beautiful, and don't let anyone tell you that you're too much.
> 
> But this also comes from me, who had the opposite experience that I wrote. I was actually taller than most of my classmates when I was in grade school because I constantly was having growth-spurts. I was young, so no one usually said anything about it, but I remember that feeling. Feeling like I was so much bigger than the girls I hung out with. Feeling weird because I was taller than my guy friends. Feeling like I was just too much. Of course, this all led to me, not growing much past the age of ten and being stuck at 5'2" forever... But not the point.
> 
> When I first read the sentence, "Never apologize for the space you occupy," I immediately wished to send it to all of my friends, and to my past self. Finally having the inspiration to write some sort of story to share that message? Needless to say, I pretty much jumped on writing it instantly.
> 
> So, never apologize for the space you occupy - whether it's a lot of space, a little space, anywhere in between. Every centimeter is perfect.


End file.
